Jobs Less Travelled: Dave’s Diving Services

Jobs Less Travelled is a series that highlights unusual and unique professions of small business owners who use Invoice2go. From scuba divers to exotic animal control, stay tuned for stories about the surprising world of small businesses.

For most people, getting your work clothes soaked is a nightmare, but for Dave Ente, it signals the start of another ordinary day. Ordinary is relative here — Dave works as a professional commercial scuba diver, a dream he’s had since he saw the whale trainers at SeaWorld and realized he could work in a wetsuit his entire life. Having spent several years as a sales rep for a scuba gear manufacturer, Dave was itching to get back in the water, so he started Dave’s Diving Services seven years ago.

Dave is pictured here after using an underwater harness and crane to recover a heavy industrial tool that had fallen down a 40 foot metal cooling well.

He learned the skills he would need for repairing boats and underwater recovery of lost tools by watching his peers work on shipwrecks for fun, gathering invaluable knowledge at an early point in his life. He gained his business acumen by chance, when the recession was in full swing. “It was dumb luck, really,” Dave says, “someone called and said they needed a pool fixed, and that turned into eight more jobs, and then all of that turned into a business.” It was slow-going at first, but word of mouth became a key factor in the growth of Dave’s business, as clients recommended him to others after seeing his impressive repair skills first hand. “After a couple years of building up, I’ve got a good reputation, and I’m as busy as a one-man operation can be,” Dave says.

Taking a break from the busy schedule Dave enjoys, he takes a moment to reflect on the most rewarding aspect of his job. “It’s different,” he explains, “the sense of accomplishment you get when you’re doing something you thought of rather than working for someone else.” It’s nice when he gets paid for something he loves doing — and Invoice2go has helped him out in that regard. He found Invoice2go one day while sitting in his truck, feeling frustrated that he wasn’t getting paid on time. Now, after installing the app and picking his custom logo (a diver, of course) he invoices straight out of the water, the way he loves to do everything- in a wetsuit.